Contents

Bio

The former Overwatch agent known as Tracer is a time-jumping adventurer and an irrepressible force for good.

Lena Oxton (call sign: "Tracer") was the youngest person ever inducted into Overwatch's experimental flight program. Known for her fearless piloting skills, she was handpicked to test the prototype of a teleporting fighter, the Slipstream. But during its first flight, the aircraft's teleportation matrix malfunctioned, and it disappeared. Lena was presumed dead.

She reappeared months later, but her ordeal had greatly changed her: her molecules had been desynchronized from the flow of time. Suffering from "chronal disassociation," she was a living ghost, disappearing for hours and days at a time. Even for the brief moments she was present, she was unable to maintain a physical form.

Overwatch's doctors and scientists were stumped, and Tracer's case seemed hopeless until a scientist named Winston designed the chronal accelerator, a device capable of keeping Tracer anchored in the present. In addition, it gave Tracer the ability to control her own time, allowing her to speed it up and slow it down at will. With her newfound skills, she became one of Overwatch's most effective agents.

Since Overwatch's dissolution, Tracer has continued to right wrongs and fight the good fight wherever the opportunity presents itself.

BlinkNon-damaging movement type3 charges7.8 m range3-second cooldownTracer zips horizontally through space in the direction she’s moving, and reappears several yards away. She stores up to three charges of the blink ability and generates more every few seconds.Default Key: (, , )Alternate Key: (, , )

RecallNon-damaging and healing movement typeLasts 1.25 seconds12-second cooldownTracer bounds backward in time, returning her health, ammo and position on the map to precisely where they were a few seconds before.Default Key: (, , )

Tracer lobs a large bomb that adheres to any surface or unfortunate opponent it lands on. After a brief delay, the bomb explodes, dealing high damage to all enemies within its blast radius.

Default Key: (, , )

"Time's up!!!"

Beside these abilities, Tracer is able to jump, crouch, reload (only when her ammo is not full), and perform Quick Melee.

Unlocks

All seasonal event items, which are marked with special event icons ( • • • • • ), are only available to be unlocked either through their respective Loot Boxes or by Credits within the event's duration.During the event, newly-introduced event items cost three times as much as non-event items of the same rarity, while returning seasonal items are unlocked at the regular price. Items which are obtained from an external source are marked with Blizzard icons () and their requirements are noted below.

Achievements

Stick 4 of Tracer's Pulse Bombs onto enemies in a single quick or competitive play game.Reward: Cute Spray

Story

Origin

Lena before the Slipstream's malfunction

At a young age, Lena Oxton was accepted into Overwatch as a pilot under the call sign Tracer. Her skills made her an ideal candidate for the first pilot of the Slipstream, a fighter jet capable of teleportation. However, the Slipstream malfunctioned, giving Lena the world's first case of chronal disassociation. For several months, she would vanish and reappear at random and was completely intangible.

After months of research, Winston was able to design a chronal accelerator for Lena. The device not only cured the problems presented by her condition, but also allowed her to speed up, slow down, or even rewind her own time manually. Using these abilities, Tracer became a standard soldier for Overwatch.

Her first deployment as a member of Overwatch was during the Null Sector takeover of King's Row. After convincing Jack Morrison to send a strike force despite Overwatch not being allowed to operate in England, she joined Reinhardt, Mercy, and Torbjörn in defeating the Null Sector's forces.

After Overwatch was disbanded

At the time of the Overwatch recall, Tracer was in London. She was the first to contact Winston when he sent out the signal.

Tracer later attended Tekhartha Mondatta's speech in King's Row. She tried to stop Widowmaker from assassinating him but failed. Widowmaker incapacitated her, and she was left with a damaged chronal accelerator.[3] Tracer then met and worked with Winston to stop Widowmaker and Reaper from stealing Doomfist's gauntlet. Though the gauntlet was damaged, there were no casualties.[4] Their actions were reported on the news and, due to the Petras Act, would be deemed illegal and punishable by law.

During the holidays, she attended a very small Christmas gathering at Watchpoint: Gibraltar with Winston and her girlfriend, Emily, after running around London to buy for Emily a present and helping people on the way.[5]

After hours without radar or visual contact, the Slipstream was presumed destroyed, and Oxton was listed as MISSING IN ACTION.

Development Entry #3

After weeks of failed attempts, Overwatch operative Winston engineered an entirely new solution.

Final Entry #4

Oxton is again firmly anchored in present time. Recommending that she be transferred from flight operations to field combat training.

Personality

Tracer is a very energetic and cheeky woman, loving a good joke and giggling during battle. She's often quick-witted and displays great affection and even insight towards her friends, such as Winston and Mei. She is extremely fearless and determined, not being afraid to take chances and being enthusiastic about discovering new things and places, according to her reaction to meeting all the different characters and seeing all the sights of the Nexus in her trailer for Heroes of the Storm.

Tracer seems to be interested in the teachings of Mondatta and the Shambali, as conveyed by her dialogue with Zenyatta. She also prefers to keep her pulse bombs to herself, as specified by one of her lines with Junkrat.

Tips

When Tracer uses Recall, the player using her views herself moving backward or forwards, while enemies only see her disappear. This means that enemies will not be able to see where she is immediately after using Recall.

If fighting Tracer, try to predict where Tracer will be after her Recall.

Predicting where she is generally isn't overly complicated. Just remember where she came from, and about a second later, you will find her, or she will come to you.

Tracer can Blink to cross gaps, opening up alternate routes. For example, Tracer can Blink across the gap in the left side of Hanamura (left when facing point B from point A).

Tracer is best used as a flanker, as it lets her get close to her enemies much more easily, and her pistols deal very high burst damage at close range.

When playing as Tracer keep track of who is alive on the enemy team. Use this to your advantage by sneaking behind the enemy and focusing a support hero trying to rush back to the fight. This is particularly good on Control point maps.

Tracer currently has one of the smallest hitboxes of any hero. However, her health is the smallest of any hero, which counter-balances her small hitbox. Keep a minimum of distance between you and any allied support.

Make sure to move around and blink erratically to make yourself harder to hit, as Tracer has low health. Her unpredictable movement will also disorient and attract attention from her enemies, making it easier for her teammates to deal with them.

However, note that Tracer's Blink has a cooldown of a few seconds, which can be substantial in combat.

Using Recall will never lower Tracer's current health, even if she has made a net health gain in the last 3 seconds.

A good time to use recall is when Tracer is close to death and she gasps.

Recall can also save Tracer from Insta-kills by Reaper or Roadhog. However, when hooked by a Roadhog, you must time it exactly right, for a second too late will mean certain death.

Tracer's Blinks are not affected by Mei'sgradual slowing effect, and using a Blink will reset Tracer's freeze counter, meaning she will move at full speed afterward and needs to be frozen from scratch again. However, Tracer cannot Blink or Recall once actually frozen. Blinks will not be affected by the Blizzard area, but if she does not escape in time, she will be frozen.

Because of the difference in aiming mechanisms, Tracer is slightly stronger on console than on PC, being able to deal more damage.

Pulse Bomb is most effective when stuck to an enemy. Additionally, if the enemy is close to other enemies, that allows Pulse Bomb to kill multiple targets. Zarya'sGraviton Surge works extremely well with Pulse Bomb, as enemies are clumped very close together, making it easier for Tracer to stick her Pulse Bomb.

Don't waste Tracer's Pulse Bomb by wildly tossing it into enemies. They will easily spot it and run away. Using it when they are not expecting it and quickly blinking away will usually guarantee a kill.

Nano Boosting a Tracer, giving her Particle Barrier, and using Lucio'sUltimate can actually be pretty dangerous for the enemies, as they will be having a difficult time eliminating the Tracer, and she can be close enough to deal her maximum damage.

While Blinks are very distracting to enemies, make sure you know where you are going. Blinking off a cliff will not help.

You can fake your death by blinking off a cliff then recalling to surprise the enemy.

Counters

Most Tracers like to blink behind a target to confuse them. Take note of this when fighting a Tracer, as turning around a little bit before they blink might give you an advantage over them.

Dealing with Tracer's mobility is the hardest part of fighting her. Try to recognize patterns the enemy Tracer follows. For example, if they always go one way to enter a fight, and a different one to leave, or if they blink a certain way. These all give you advantages over the Tracer and make her easy to deal with.

Trivia

Tracer was the first hero completed and implemented into the game. She was designed as a combination of a fighter pilot and a track athlete.[7]

Tracer's hair was originally black, rather than brown. This can be seen in her concept art.

In March–April 2016, there was a controversy relating to Tracer's Over The Shoulder victory pose, claiming that the pose was out of character. Blizzard followed through with the complaint and released a new update on April 5, 2016, editing said pose to be more appropriate.

Tracer is seen in the tutorial guiding the player, who plays through as Soldier: 76.

Tracer is capable of removing her chronal accelerator and still maintain her point in time. This is shown to occur at least twice in Reflections.

Blizzard later stated on Facebook that, as long as Tracer is in the vicinity of her chronal accelerator, she can maintain her point in time.[9]

Tracer is currently the only Overwatch hero whose sexuality has been directly addressed. According to Reflections, Tracer is dating and living with a woman named Emily. Blizzard later elaborated in a statement, clarifying that Tracer is a lesbian.[10]

Tracer, or rather, someone wearing a Tracer skin, has a cameo appearance in the 2018 Steven Spielberg film Ready Player One.[11]

Cultural References

Tracer's skin "Mach T" is a reference to the famous Ford GT40 Racing Livery.

Tracer's skin "T. Racer" is a reference to the classic popular cartoon, Speed Racer.

Tracer's Posh and Sporty skins are likely references to the Spice Girl band members Posh Spice, Victoria Adams and Sporty Spice, Melanie Chisholm.

Tracer's chronal accelerator on her chest displays lights that are similar to the King's Row Big Ben's clock face.

Tracer's accent is intended to be London Cockney. However, the combination of this with professional-quality elocution is a jarring contradiction for many British listeners, giving her the sound of an exaggerated stereotype or an upper-class woman affecting an accent. Her use of "Wicked" to mean good, which is almost never used by adults except as a parody of teenagers' speech (and in the modern UK rarely used by teenagers at all) contributes to this.

The August 2nd patch introduced two new Olympic-themed skins for Tracer called "Sprinter" and "Track & Field". Instead of a chronal accelerator, these two skins have a digital stopwatch on Tracer's chest that reads 13:37, which is a leetspeak term for Leet.